Primary Topic
This episode explores the dramatic and harrowing downfall of the Knights Templar, orchestrated by King Philip IV of France in 1307.
Episode Summary
Main Takeaways
- The Templars were victims of a royal conspiracy, falsely charged and persecuted to confiscate their immense wealth.
- Torture and forced confessions were central to legitimizing the baseless accusations against the Templars.
- The episode reflects on the catastrophic impact of greed and power, which can corrupt absolutely and lead to historical tragedies.
- The narrative serves as a reminder of the dangers of absolute power and the importance of justice and due process.
- The downfall of the Templars is a significant historical event that resonates as a cautionary tale about the abuse of power and its long-term repercussions.
Episode Chapters
1: The Siege Begins
The Templars at their Paris temple are ambushed and arrested without warning, marking the beginning of their persecution. Danièle Cybulskie: "It's the morning of Friday the 13th of October, 1307. Across the kingdom of France, hundreds of Templars are being arrested without warning and thrown in prison."
2: King's Accusations
King Philip IV's charges against the Templars are declared, including heresy and idolatry. Danièle Cybulskie: "He begins to read a list of charges, each one more outlandish than the last."
3: Torture and Confessions
Under severe torture, Templars are forced to confess to crimes they did not commit, a method to extract 'evidence' for King Philip IV's claims. Danièle Cybulskie: "In France they sing like canaries."
4: The Burning of the Templars
The episode describes the horrific execution of the Templars by burning, a brutal demonstration of the king's resolve and cruelty. Danièle Cybulskie: "On top of the pyres, the king's officers are fastening the last of the prisoners to the post with thick ropes."
5: The Curse of the Templars
The Templars' curse, pronounced by their Grand Master Jacques de Molay at the moment of his death, foreshadows the downfall of those responsible for their persecution. Danièle Cybulskie: "God will avenge our death."
Actionable Advice
- Always question the sources of historical narratives to avoid accepting biased accounts.
- Stand against unjust treatments in modern contexts by advocating for fair legal processes.
- Educate oneself about historical injustices to recognize similar patterns in today's world.
- Support transparency and accountability in leadership to prevent abuses of power.
- Engage in discussions about history to cultivate a more informed and critical society.
About This Episode
Philip the Fair turns his owl-like gaze onto the mighty order of the Knights Templar. They have amassed a huge amount of wealth: wealth Philip wants. He and his lawyer concoct a plan to take on one of the most famous holy orders in all of Christendom.
People
Philip IV, Jacques de Molay
Content Warnings:
Contains descriptions of violence and torture.
Transcript
Danièle Cybulskie
Just a warning that this episode contains descriptions of violence that may not be suitable for all listeners.
There is a pounding at the gate.
The brother on watch stretches and yawns.
The temple is usually a pretty busy place, but never this early.
He scrubs a hand over his face and goes to look out. When he sees who it is, he scrambles to unlock the gate.
Dozens of men stand outside. Theyre wearing royal colors and theyre armed to the teeth. As he opens his mouth to ask their business, hes rudely shoved aside.
Something isnt right here. He needs to get the master and warn him. But before he can run, a soldier pins his arms from behind and tackles him to the ground. The gatekeeper cries out.
In the chapel, a group of knights raise their heads. Unlike the gatekeeper, these are full members of the Templar order, hardened warriors who have spilled blood in the holy land. They know a warning shout when they hear one. But what could be the matter? Their home in Paris and the kingdom is at peace.
As they get up off their knees, they quickly look to the grand master for answers. But Jacques de Molay's face shows nothing but confusion.
The door to the chapel slams open and the king's soldiers storm in. Their mail clad boots strike the floor with an unholy noise as they advance on the brothers. More than one Templar in the chapel reflexively reaches for his sword. But theyre unarmed. Theyve been interrupted in the middle of their morning service.
An official at the front of the soldiers holds a letter in his hand. Several of the brothers recognize the king's seal attached to it. Theyve been in the royal presence many times, acting as bodyguards and delivering money. Jacques de Molay had been at the palace only yesterday, serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of the Kings sister in law. What on earth is going on here?
The official begins to speak, but his words dont make any sense. Every one of the knights Templar gods, holiest warriors, is being arrested in the name of King Philip I. As the brothers blink in disbelief, the french officers begin to tear the chapel apart. They confiscate the chalice and the crucifix, turn over benches and tap on walls. The grandmaster protests, but he is shouted down by the man in charge.
These objects now belong to the king. They are evidence.
He begins to read a list of charges, each one more outlandish than the last. Heresy. Idolatry. The official gets as far as sodomy before a fist hits his face. Several outraged brothers have readied themselves to resist, but Jacques de Molay orders them to stand down.
The grandmaster has seen enough violence to know when his men are outnumbered one by one. The most storied and feared knights in all of Christendom raise their hands and surrender.
It's the morning of Friday the 13 October, 1307. Across the kingdom of France, hundreds of Templars are being arrested without warning and thrown in prison. Their lands are confiscated. Their temples are ransacked. It's the beginning of one of the most tyrannical persecutions of the entire middle ages.
I'm Danielle Cebalski, and from Sony Music Entertainment, this is history presents the Iron King, episode five the Last Templar.
Jussie Tyler Ferguson
Consider yourself a real this is history buff, then you should be joining us on this is history plus. Subscribers get extra episodes every week where Danielle and I nerd out into some of the most fascinating side plots we didn't have time to cover in the main episode. If you sign up today, you can get one month of this is history plus for free. Just visit this is history on Apple Podcasts and click try free at the top of the page or visit thisishishorypod.com to get access wherever you listen to podcasts. See you there.
Danièle Cybulskie
By the time Philip the fair becomes king of France, the poor fellow soldiers of Christ in the temple of Jerusalem, aka the Templars, have been the most admired and respected knights in all Christendom for the better part of two centuries. Although they started out as a group of just nine knights who acted as bodyguards for pilgrims in the Holy Land, the order quickly grew. Like monks, Templars swore oaths of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Unlike monks, their duty was to go out and kick a lot of ass.
As time passes, the Templars become legendary figures, men who seem so selfless and so dangerous that they gain masses of adoring fans far and wide. Theyre like holy firefighters, but without the sexy calendars. The Templars get a ton of donations from supportive christians across Europe, which they use to take over bits of the holy land from the Muslims. Their temples spring up everywhere and become places where devout Christians can donate money or even just deposit money, which they can later take out from another temple elsewhere. This proto banking system means that pilgrims can now travel without their trousers jingling and drawing unwanted attention from thieves.
The Templars ability to both manage wealth and defend it means that theyre entrusted with shuttling money around kingdoms everywhere, kind of like medieval armored cars. And because they have access to a whole lot of ready cash, kings frequently tap them for loans. Kings like Philip the Fair.
As we heard last episode, by 1306, the people of France are in a cost of living crisis, the mass expulsion of Frances jewish population was supposed to fix things, but it only makes a dent in the kingdoms debt. Frustrated beyond reason, in December, Paris revolts for the first time since his close shaven Flanders, Philip the fair is spooked. He needs the hardest men in Christendom to keep him safe for a few days. So naturally he goes to the Templars. Maybe its while hes getting a grand tour of the Paris temple that the idea Philip has been mulling over for a while now firms up in his mind.
The Templars have been loaning Philip money for ages, but they have more. A lot more. In the summer of 1307, once the immediate danger has passed, Philip welcomes the grandmaster of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, to the french court for a little chat. Molay probably takes this as a good sign. Hes been trying to drum up support for a new crusade for years.
Then again, he hasnt forgotten that only a few years back, Philip had wanted to merge the Templars with another military order, the hospitallers, making himself the grand master. Millay is hoping that isnt what this is about. Over wine and cheese, Philip asks Millay about the Templar order. What is their induction ceremony like? What happens at it?
Why is it secret? His face gives nothing away. But Guillaume de Nogaret is taking copious notes. Whether its a raised eyebrow from Philip or a snort from Nogaret, something gets Jacques de Molays spidey senses tingling. He hurries to the pope, Clement V, and tells him Philip is up to no good.
On August 24, Pope Clement writes to Philip, trying to calm the situation. He says hes heard some gossip and many strange and unheard of things buzzing around the Templars. Just sit tight, he tells Philip. I got this. But a papal investigation is exactly what Philip doesnt want.
If hes going to steal the Templars wealth for himself, he needs to move fast.
On September 14, Philip sends secret letters across France detailing how the arrest of the templar should go down. It will be kingdom wide, simultaneous and lightning fast.
One month later, on October 13, every one of the Templars in France is arrested, their possessions seized and their lands confiscated by the king's minions. It's the very same playbook used for the arrest of the Jews the year before, and its every bit as successful. The charges leveled against the Templars are exactly what youd get if you created a Philip the fair bingo card heresy, check. Consorting with demons, check. Sodomy, check.
Check and double check. At this point, his lawyerly attack dog, Guillaume de Nogure is working off a tried and tested template for destruction. The shocked Templars are thrown in prison, denying the accusations. But Philip needs confessions. So he sends inquisitors to begin the grim work of torturing them.
In the words of one writer, they were shamefully and dishonorably incarcerated with destructive rage, afflicted with taunts, the gravest threats, and various sorts of torture. This included cold, starvation, isolation, beatings and worse. Believe it or not, torture wasnt an everyday occurrence in the medieval world and many kingdoms like England didnt allow it at all for the very sensible reason that people will say literally anything to make it stop. At this moment in time, France permits torture to extract confessions under certain specific legal circumstances, as Philip knows very well. So while in other places the Templars stubbornly refuse to admit to any wrongdoing, in France they sing like canaries.
When Clement finds out about Philips mass arrest of his holy army, he receives the news with a mighty wTf. While he may put it a little more mildly, in the letter he sends to Paris, he tells Philip in no uncertain terms that he is way overstepping. But by then its too late. Because on October 24, 1307, just eleven days after his arrest, the grandmaster of the Templar, Jacques de Molay, confesses.
Hundreds of his french brethren do the same. Philip the fair has now got boatloads of evidence to prove that the Tamblar order is both corrupt and heretical. It's all he needs to seal the fate of Christianity's favored sons.
Justin Long
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But. So I suggested maybe, like I said, maybe the most I could do is uncle. Okay, so that was just a snippet of an episode with actor and podcaster Justin Long. I'm Jussie Tyler Ferguson and I'm telling you, you need to listen to the full episode on my podcast. Dinner's on me.
Jussie Tyler Ferguson
Over a meal at Pine and Crane in downtown LA. We get into his love story with Kate Bosworth, his career and so much more to listen. Just search dinners on me. Wherever you listen to podcasts.
Kathy Burke
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Where there's a will, there's a wake. Every week. I have a natter to some of our favourite people about their fantasy funeral. And my God, we've had some fabulous guests through my deathly doors, including Danny Dyer, Dawn French and Sir Steve McQueen. From Sony Music entertainment weathers of wilders awake.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Danièle Cybulskie
It's the afternoon of May 12, 1310. In a field outside of Paris. Hundreds of people have come to witness something no one has ever seen before, or ever will again.
In the open space, dozens of pyres have been readied, their wooden posts stretching towards the sky.
More than a hundred torches crackle in the hands of men dressed in the colors of the king of France. A ring of soldiers stands watch, ready to push the people back if they make a move to free the prisoners. The crowd murmurs some of them are openly sobbing and crossing themselves. They know what they're seeing, but they still can't believe it.
On top of the pyres, the king's officers are fastening the last of the prisoners to the post with thick ropes. It has taken a while. An astounding 54 men have been sent, sentenced to die here today. The prisoners themselves are emaciated, filthy, exhausted. The distinctive crosses on their robes are barely visible under the dirt and blood that testified to their mistreatment.
They blink in the bright light, their eyes unused to the sun after their long incarceration.
A hush falls over the crowd as the king's officers approach with their torches.
As the kindling lights and the pyres catch with a roar of fire, the templars begin screaming. They call out to God, they beg for forgiveness. They say they are innocent. And they rail at Philip the fair, the king who has sent them to their deaths for crimes they didnt commit.
The smoke can be seen for miles. Once again, Phillips ruthlessness and blatant disregard for both rules and human decency shocks Europe. A year ago, Clement had wrestled the investigation into the Templars back from Philip and assured everyone that he had a handle on things. And yet, in May 1310, Philip flouts the Popes authority in the most brutal way possible. So how did he pull it off?
How could this have happened? Its a complicated web that could only be woven with the help of a talented lawyer, a lawyer like Guillaume de Nogaret. Although the medieval church was never exactly cuddly, it wasnt quite as murderous as modern movies and tv shows may lead us to believe. Usually if you made a mistake and tripped over into heresy, you could get right back on track by doing some penance, eating some bread, drinking some water, spending some time away from your favorite things for a while. That kind of thing.
And after youd said you were sorry and done your penance, you were forgiven. After all, the forgiveness of sins is the entire business of Christianity in the first place. But if you relapsed, the price of being welcomed back into the fold went up. And if the church decided you were a danger to other peoples faith, they believed it was best to solve the problem permanently. So one time heretics could be forgiven, but repeat offenders could not, because one of the ten Commandments is thou shalt not kill.
The church was not permitted to spill blood, so how could they deal with the danger these obstinate heretics presented? In an age in which kings ruled by divine right? The answer was simple. Heretics represented a clear and present danger to society, including the divine right of kings. And kings were allowed to kill people.
So when a heretic threatened society with their actions, they were promptly handed over to the king for execution. When the pope took over the investigation into the Templars in 1309, the brothers found themselves caught in a deadly catch. 22 theyd already confessed under the torture of Philip Ires cronies when they were first arrested. If they had let their confessions stand, they would have been admitted heretics. But if theyd tried to go back on their word, they would have been considered relapsed heretics.
The men were already being held prisoner under horrific conditions. So hundreds of templars decided to gamble on the mercy of the church to gain absolution.
Under the questioning of their papal interrogators. They took back everything theyve said. They insisted on their innocence. They put everything on the record. They trusted that the church they served would have their backs.
But once again, Philip the fair had stacked the deck.
On May 12, 1310, the archbishop who oversaw Paris, a man who just happened to be the brother of one of Philips top henchmen, decided that 54 of the Templars in his jurisdiction who retracted their confessions were relapsed heretics. This meant that their fate was now in the hands of the king of France, and Philip wanted them dead. The Templars were immediately escorted to the outskirts of the city, where the pyres had already been prepared. In anticipation of this ruling, they were given no time to put together a legal defense. They'd put their faith in Clement and the church to set things right.
But with Philip the fair always one step ahead, their fate was a foregone conclusion. When the pope hears the news of their deaths, he can do nothing but grind his teeth. After all, these Templars were technically convicted of heresy by a representative of the church. Theres no proof that the king of France had anything to do with it. A smug Philip, the fair begins leasing the Templars land in anticipation of total victory.
In October 1311, papal investigators from all over Europe finally bring their findings before Clement at the council of Vienne. They say that no kingdom but France has been able to produce a shred of evidence that the Templars are guilty of anything they've been charged with. And the french evidence would be laughable if it hadn't come at such a high cost. In a nutshell, the investigators say that the charges against the Templar should be dismissed, full stop. Clement hems and haws.
He drags his feet. He tries to find a way out of the snare Philip has trapped him in with all his coerced confessions. But hes well and truly cornered. He bites his nails and hides his head under his pillow. But he cant hide from Philip forever.
By spring, Philip has been waiting almost four years for the verdict that will deliver the Templars wealth into his hands. His patience is at an end. On March 20, he arrives in Vienne at the head of an army and pointedly aims his owl like stare in the direction of the papal palace. Two days later, perhaps thinking of his predecessors fate, Clement folds like a house of cards. He issues a papal bull that reads, these confessions render the order very suspect.
The infamy and suspicion render it detestable to the holy Church of God. Therefore, with a sad heart, we suppress the order of the Templars and its rule, habit and name by an inviolable and perpetual decree. With that, the nearly 20 zero year old order of Crusader knights, one of the most highly respected military organizations of all time, is reduced to nothing.
When the bull is read out to the council, everyone in the room is threatened with excommunication if they dare to speak one word. So much for legal process. It's an absolutely outrageous abuse of power. And it gets so much worse. In May 1312, any Templars not sentenced to life imprisonment, that is, those who were considered either innocent or absolved, are reminded that theyve taken the same vows as monks.
This means that they are not permitted to live as free men. Instead, they are ordered to find themselves a friendly monastery to live in and basically never show their faces in public again. Or they can join the hospitallers, the military order theyd been hellbent on not joining for decades. Clement grants the hospitallers all the Templars wealth and lands, but only after Philip has been financially compensated for all the time and trouble of hounding the Templars to death. In the first place, its not quite the windfall Philip wanted, but getting paid for obliterating his enemies is a pretty sweet deal for the french king.
All that remains is to decide the fate of the grand master and his top men who have confessed and unconfessed and then sort of confessed again for two long years. The fate of Jacques de Molay is debated while he slowly loses his sanity in prison under the sadistic supervision of Guillaume de Nogaret. On March 18, 1314, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Milay and his companions are given a life sentence of hard imprisonment. At the prospect of spending one more second in the same miserable conditions, Molay finally snaps. He and another brother begin howling out their innocence and protesting the injustice of this entire farce.
Millay knows very well what proclaiming innocence will mean, but hes beyond caring. Philip the fair sentences him to death.
Within hours. Jacques de Molay is taken to the site of his execution, this time on an island in the river Seine, just a short distance from Philips palace and the cathedral of notre dame.
Millais, facing the destruction of his holy order and a painful death, doesnt weep or beg for his life. On the contrary, according to a chronicler who claims to have been an eyewitness, seeing the fire ready, the master stood there in his shirt happily and in good spirits. After taking a moment to pray, Molay says, God knows that my death is wrong and a sin. So in a short time evil things will befall those who have condemned us to death. He puts it very bluntly, perhaps looking towards Philips palace where the king has remained not bothering to witness, God will avenge our death.
The grandmaster of the Templars last request, the chronicler says, was to be turned to face Notre Dame. He died like this and met his death so sweepy that everyone was amazed.
As Philip the fair retires to his royal bed that night to sleep the sleep of the most christian king, he dismisses the curse of the last grandmaster Philip has defeated all enemies. Hes proven time and again that he is the most powerful man in Europe. Gods chosen one, the Iron King. What has he possibly got to fear?
But the Templars final curse will prove itself potent enough to strike down Pope Clement v just one month later. Later, and although Philip doesnt know it, the sand in his hourglass is quickly running out. Not just on his reign, but on the entire capetian dynasty.
But thats next time on the final episode of the Iron King on this is history.
Jussie Tyler Ferguson
Well Danielle, you finally killed off the Templars. I think it was Philip that did that. Yes, but the Templars are gone and I'm sorry about that. I know you love them, it's not your fault. But look, there is a lot to talk about.
The fascinating history of the Templars, how Philip got away with it, and of course how my Plantagenets reacted to such a seismic shift in european power. So listeners, if you want to hear that, please do join us over on this is history plus, because you also. Get all the episodes of the Iron King and all of dans entire back catalog totally ad free and that is a steal. So you can try it out with a free trial which has just been extended to a month in honor of the Iron King. If you sign up by June 18.
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